Accuracy of Wind Tunnel and CFD from team to team

Judging from SIngapore gp, the only two teams that got their updates working were Mclaren, Rbr, Williams.

The rest include Sauber, Ferrari, Lotus etc had to scrap their updates and went back to older parts,

Is it about 50% to 60 % scale stuff??

Of they simply housed better Simulator??

Judging from SIngapore gp, the only two teams that got their updates working were Mclaren, Rbr, Williams.

The rest include Sauber, Ferrari, Lotus etc had to scrap their updates and went back to older parts,

Is it about 50% to 60 % scale stuff??

Of they simply housed better Simulator??

Clearly CFD works better than your calculator...

Oh - And that happens with wind-tunnels too.

Pat Fry said that all Ferrari updates for Singapore had worked except for the rear wing.

Judging from SIngapore gp, the only two teams that got their updates working were Mclaren, Rbr, Williams.

The rest include Sauber, Ferrari, Lotus etc had to scrap their updates and went back to older parts,

Is it about 50% to 60 % scale stuff??

Of they simply housed better Simulator??

It does seem to be a big issue, updates not working as expected.

I don't think it's really because they are not allowed 100% models in the wind tunnel, I understand that setting up a wind tunnel is a tricky business.

And of course CFD and simulation is worthless unless it matches the real world very precisely.

Earlier this year, some said that McLaren 'wasted' the in-season test by sending their test drivers (who spend a lot of time on the simulator) instead of their race drivers. Looking at their performance now, you'd have to say that it wasn't necessarily a mistake.

Setting up a wind tunnel is extremely tricky business. I was lucky enough to have 3 day of wind tunnel work once one a crude 33% scale model. Just trying to get consistent results is hard enough.

The scale isn't a huge issue, because you can account for that. In fact a 100% scale test could give you worse results if your tunnel is too small.

It's all about going back and perfecting your models after real world testing. Both scale models and CFD models. There's a lot for even the best to get wrong.